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Jasper Goes Hunting (1944)

Restoration funding provided by The International Animated Film Society, ASIFA-Hollywood.

George Pal won an Honorary Academy Award in 1944 for the development of “novel methods and techniques in the production of short subjects known as Puppetoons.” His achievement was the creation of “replacement animation”—a method still employed by puppet animators today. Jasper Goes Hunting perfectly illustrates this effect as little Jasper daydreams of elephant hunting through a Technicolor Congo. This short is notable for an unusual cameo using (spoiler alert!) Warner Bros. cartoon star Bugs Bunny (voiced by Mel Blanc, animated by Bob McKimson) in a Paramount short—the sort of cross-studio, once-in-a-lifetime team up that literally never happened again—until Who FramedRoger Rabbit 44 years later!—Jerry Beck

A Hatful of Dreams (1944)

Preservation funding provided by The International Animated Film Society, ASIFA-Hollywood.

George Pal’s stop motion Puppetoons were peopled with all types of characters. Two of his most popular were a pair of lovestruck kids named Punchy and Judy. Here, down-on-his-luck Punchy obtains a magical straw hat from a plucky talking horse and transforms himself into Aladdin and, with the official permission of DC Comics, Superman. Hoping to impress Judy, Punchy’s delusions of grandeur only land him in jail. The talking horse is a witness at Punchy’s trial and cajoles the judge, arresting Officer Moriarty and members of the jury to test the hat, causing their secret selves to emerge inbound, a hilarious spectacle as their unfettered dreams and desire hold sway.—Jerry Beck

The Old Man of the Mountain (1932)

Preservation funding provided by David Stenn.

Vacationing in a mountain village, Betty Boop discovers the locals terrorized by the titular elder, a giant white-bearded ogre with a pernicious eye for feminine pulchritude. "I'm going up there to see that old man!" she announces defiantly. Trekking up the mountain Betty encounters a weeping unwed mother pushing a pram of white-bearded twins, and a reflective mud puddle harboring fish with decidedly slimy thoughts. The Old Man proves to be a rotoscoped Cab Calloway who sings the title song and cuts a jazz pas de deux with Betty before scaring her down to her underwear. Max and Dave Fleischer in their prime, coarse and hilarious.—Scott MacQueen.

Pink Elephants (1937)

Preservation funding provided by The International Animated Film Society, ASIFA-Hollywood.

In this absolutely lunatic chase comedy, Paul Terry’s most enduring character, Farmer Al Falfa, is run out of his bed and through the house by pink pachyderms conjured when his pet goat eats a few beer cans during a midnight stroll (a scene censored for later Saturday morning kidvid television). The herd of spectral, dipsomaniacal elephants, evoking hi-dee-ho man Cab Calloway along the way, torment Al Falfa until the clever farmer plots his revenge. This is the only Terrytoon co-directed by talented Dan Gordon and the last cartoon at the studio to feature the work of future animation superstars Joe Barbera, Jack Zander and George Gordon, all of whom would leave Terry to reboot MGM’s cartoon studio in Culver City.—Jerry Beck

Restored by UCLA Film & Television Archive. Preserved from the 35mm nitrate camera negative and a 35mm nitrate print. Laboratory services by Fotokem, Audio Mechanics, DJ Audio, Inc., UCLA Film & Television Archive. Special thanks to Paramount Pictures Archives.

The Banker's Daughter (1933)

Preservation funding provided by The International Animated Film Society, ASIFA-Hollywood.

Releasing a new cartoon to theaters every two weeks, producer Paul Terry had the idea to create an animated movie serial parodying 1890s melodrama. This was the proposed first installment with four more “chapters” to be released over the next two months. The concept didn’t catch on, but the characters and tropes did—zaftig Fanny Zilch, the damsel in distress, pursued by mustachioed villain Oil Can Harry in his opera hat and the dashing (albeit effeminate) hero Strongheart. The cliffhanger situations and operetta format became a Terry studio staple over the next 20 years, including the return of Oil Can Harry himself, tropes later adopted by Terry’s 1940s-50s “Mighty Mouse” cartoons. Here’s where that all began.—Jerry Beck

Caviar (1930)

Preservation funding provided by The International Animated Film Society, ASIFA-Hollywood.

The first release from Terrytoons, a new studio run by animators Paul Terry and Frank Moser, formerly of Van Beuren’s popular silent-era Aesop’s Fables. Obtaining a contract from Educational Pictures (“The Spice of the Program”) for 26 sound cartoons a year, Terry made ‘em fast and cheap—but they are not without their charms. In his first year, every cartoon was named after a food that would suggest a setting for the gags and musical score. In this case the gags revolved around life in the USSR; the music, a symphony of pseudo Russian melodies. Note, that’s composer Philip A. Scheib seen in silhouette in an opening prologue.—Jerry Beck

Restored by UCLA Film & Television Archive. Preserved from a 35mm nitrate print. Laboratory services by Fotokem, Audio Mechanics, DJ Audio, Inc., UCLA Film & Television Archive, Special thanks to Paramount Pictures Archives.

Freight Yard Symphony (1963)

Preservation funding provided by the National Film Preservation Foundation.

This early UCLA student film by noted visual effects pioneer Robert Abel (1937-2001) employs a mixed media approach to distill the kinetic energy of an industrial train depot into bold graphic elements. With a jazz score, Piet Mondrian-inspired lines and Oskar Fischinger-style movement, the highly-accomplished animated short evokes the modernist works of Saul Bass and Ray and Charles Eames.